called him and told him the
news.

"Ill tidings, Macumazahn," he said; "there will be dead Boers about
to-morrow morning, but they will not attack till dawn, then they will
wipe out the laager _so!_" and he passed his hand before his mouth.

"Stop that croaking, you white-headed crow," I said, though I knew
his words were true. What chance had a laager of ten waggons all told
against at least two thousand of the bravest savages in the world?

"Macumazahn, will you take my advice this time?" Indaba-zimbi said,
presently.

"What is it?" I asked.

"This. Leave your waggons here, jump on that horse, and let us two run
for it as hard as we can go. The Zulus won't follow us, they will be
looking after the Boers."

"I won't leave the other white men," I said; "it would be the act of a
coward. If I die, I die."

"Very well, Macumazahn, then stay and be killed," he answered, taking
a pinch of snuff. "Come, let us see about the waggons," and we walked
towards the laager.

Here everything was in confusion. However, I got hold of Hans Botha and
put it to him if it would not be best to desert the waggons and make a
run for it.

"How can we do it?" he answered; "two of the women are too fat to go
a mile, one is sick in childbed, and we have only six horses among us.
Besides, if we did we should starve in the desert. No, Heer Allan, we
must fight it out with the savages, and God help us!"

"God help us, indeed. Think of the children, Hans!"

"I can't bear to think," he answered, in a broken voice, looking at his
own little girl, a sweet, curly-haired, blue-eyed child of six, named
Tota, whom I had often nursed as a baby. "Oh, Heer Allan, your father,
the Predicant, always warned me against trekking north, and I never
would listen to him because I thought him a cursed Englishman; now I see
my folly. Heer Allan, if you can, try to save my child from those black
devils; if you live longer than I do, or if you can't save her, kill
her," and he clasped my hand.

"It hasn't come to that yet, Hans," I said.

Then we set to work on the laager. The waggons, of which, including
my two, there were ten, were drawn into the form of a square, and the
disselboom of each securely lashed with reims to the underworks of that
in front of it. The wheels also were locked, and the space between the
ground and the bed-planks of the waggons was stuffed with branches
of the "wait-a-bit" thorn that fortunately grew near in considerable
quant